Ambitious fundraising planned by Movidia

A new Dublin-based semiconductor chip design company headed by a former Parthus Technologies executive is planning to raise millions of euro by the beginning of next year to fund development at the ambitious start-up.

Founded by Seán Mitchell, Movidia designs chips for mobile phone devices. The company has just hired Paul Costigan, the founder and former chief executive of Massana, an Irish chip design firm that was acquired in 2003 by Agere Systems for more than $26 million (€18.31 million) in stock and cash. Mr Costigan is joining Movidia as its chief operating officer.

Mr Mitchell is the former general manager of the applications processing division at Parthus, which was founded by Brian Long and floated on the Nasdaq in 2000. At one stage it was valued at more than $3 billion. It merged with Israeli group DSP in 2002 to create a new firm, Ceva.

David Moloney, also a former executive at Parthus, is Movidia's chief technical officer.

Mr Costigan was until recently the chief operating officer of Portuguese firm Chipidea. It was sold last month to US-based MIPS Technologies for up to $147 million. In 2005, Mr Costigan was instrumental in securing €12 million in funding for Chipidea from Kennett Venture Partners, BCP Capital and Vision Capital.

Mr Costigan founded Massana in 1996. At the time of its takeover, Massana had net liabilities of more than $20 million and had raised about $35 million in funding. The expense in commercialising its products was cited as the main reason for its sale.

Mr Moloney and Mr Mitchell have so far invested a total of €355,000 in Movidia, while another director, Martin Mellody, has invested €145,000. Mr Mitchell and Mr Moloney had invested €250,000 in another chip firm, Silansys Technologies, which was sold to a UK company in 2005 for €6 million.

Mr Mitchell said Movidia was currently finalising investment in the firm from some private individuals and confirmed that he had approached Irish and international venture capital firms to obtain substantial backing. He added that the fundraising could be completed by early 2008.

Movidia has established a development base in Romania and is actively hiring staff. The office will complement development work undertaken in Ireland. Mr Mitchell added that Movidia hoped to have the first of its products on the market by next year.

It is likely that Movidia will approach venture capital firms such as Atlantic Bridge, which is headed by Mr Long and other former Parthus senior executives. It has invested in chip design firms such as UK-based Nanotech Semiconductor and California-based GloNav.

Earlier this year Atlantic Bridge led a consortium of investors that acquired the telecoms products business of mobile messaging solutions firm LogicaCMG for €392 million.